Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Tom Parkin discusses the Libs’ identity politics – and how they endanger people’s substantive interests both in what the Libs fail to do, and in the predictable reaction from right-wing populists: For Liberals, identity politics is a distraction from economic policies that are
Continue readingTag: Thomas Walkom
Alberta Politics: Was the Russian Embassy’s press secretary expelled from Canada for telling the embarrassing truth? Sure sounds that way!
PHOTOS: Kirill Kalinin, former First Secretary and Press Secretary of the Russian Embassy in Canada. Below: Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland, and the Russian Embassy in Ottawa. Was Kirill Kalinin some kind of intelligence operative, as the Trudeau Government and the Globe and Mail now want us to think, or
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Who saw Donald Trump coming? Not Simon Reisman, that’s for sure, but maybe Ed Broadbent and John Turner
PHOTOS: Simon Reisman’s business card. Below: Mr. Reisman, chief Canadian negotiator of the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement in a screenshot of a blurry CBC archival broadcast; a recent shot of Brian Mulroney (Photo: Mike Feraco); Toronto Star political columnist Thomas Walkom; and lobbyist Robin Sears. Circa 1986, I recognized Simon
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Rochelle Toplensky reports that ten years after a financial meltdown based on the instability of top-down economic structures, multinational corporations are paying substantially lower effective tax rates than they did before. And Jim Tankersley and Alan Rappaport follow up on how the Trump
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Afternoon Links
Assorted content to end your week. -Tom Parkin laments the timidity of the Libs’ budget, while recognizing the opportunities it creates for the NDP: Over $7 billion in infrastructure investment, the cornerstone of the Liberals 2015 election appeal, was cut and pushed past the next election — despite the sorry
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Thomas Walkom and Andre Picard took the time to wonder whether the Libs actually planned to deliver on pharmacare before Bill Morneau confirmed otherwise. – Joe Fries examines the history of P3s in British Columbia. And Alex MacPherson breaks the news that
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Paul Krugman reminds us of the fraud that is right-wing bleating about deficits: There have been many “news analysis” pieces asking why Republicans have changed their views on deficit spending. But let’s be serious: Their views haven’t changed at all. They never really
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Joe Romm discusses new research showing that man-made greenhouse gas emissions have ended an 11,000-year era of climate stability. – Thomas Walkom points out the contradictions in Justin Trudeau’s declaration that there will be no federal climate policy without new pipelines. And David
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Thomas Walkom discusses Canada’s likely NAFTA decision between an even worse deal than exists now, and no deal at all – though it’s worth recognizing that the latter choice shouldn’t be seen as a problem. And Alex Panetta points out the Libs’ total
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Andrew Sheng discusses the role of oversimplified assumptions about economic development in exacerbating wealth and income inequality: The American era has been very comfortable with the timeless, universal model of the free market. Inconvenient problems such as inequality are market failures, which the
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Elizabeth Kolbert comments on the psychology of inequality, and particularly how the current trend in which a disproportionate share of gains goes to a small number of wealthy individuals produces no ultimate winners: As the relative-income model predicted, those who’d learned that they
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Damian Paletta and Josh Dawsey report that cash for access is the only way for anybody to raise issues with the U.S. Republicans’ tax bills. And Ronald Brownstein views the tax debacle as conclusive evidence of the closing of Republican minds. –
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to end your week. – Laurie MacFarlane points out how increases in land values have resulted in massive and unearned disparities in wealth. – Kevin Page, Claudette Bradshaw, Geoff Nelson and Tim Aubrey write that a national housing strategy needs to focus on the availability of both affordable
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
This and that for your weekend reading. – Abacus Data has polled the Canadian public on climate change, and found far more appetite for meaningful action than we generally hear from the political class (and particularly right-wing parties): Twenty years ago, when the world’s leaders were debating the Kyoto Accord,
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Matt Bruenig explores the U.S.’ wealth inequality and finds a similarly skewed distribution of wealth among all kinds of demographic subgroups. And Robert Reich discusses why the attempt to sell a tax cut for billionaires as doing anything but making that problem worse
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Ed Finn discusses how corporate giants exert far more influence than we generally know – or should be willing to accept. And Joseph Schwartz and Bhaskar Sunkara comment on the difficulty in achieving durable social-democratic policies while economic power is concentrated in
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Afternoon Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Abigail McKnight and Richard Reeves write about the gilded floor that prevents the wealthy from facing the realities lived by most people. Eric Levitz discusses how the Trump economy is producing plenty for the ultra-rich, but little but mediocrity for everybody else. And
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Leadership 2017 Links
The latest from the federal NDP’s leadership campaign. – Alex Ballingall reports on Guy Caron’s infrastructure and jobs plan which features both a large investment in public works, and substantial improvements in both wages and working conditions under federal jurisdiction. – Thomas Walkom criticizes Singh’s plan to roll Old Age
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Damian Carrington reports on new research showing that the actual change in temperature caused by greenhouse gas emissions may be larger than anticipated in even the most cautious forecasts to date. And Chloe Farand highlights France’s plan to rein in its contribution
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Lana Payne writes that austerity bears much of the blame for the Grenfell Tower inferno – as well as for the increased dangers facing all but the wealthiest of people: Grenfell Tower was not an accident. It is what happens when austerity
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